Never Let Me Go Characters: Ruth
Ruth Ruth is Kathy’s best friend and the most intriguing and frustrating character in the novel. She is mercurial, her motivations are hard to pin down from one moment to the next and she is hard to like because she seems chiefly concerned with her own interests and always seems to have an ulterior motive. She befriends passive Kathy who is willing to be swept along by Ruth’s schemes and agendas and although Kathy is fiercely loyal to Ruth, Ruth is not above putting Kathy down in front of others to make herself look better. When Tommy and Kathy become friends Ruth moves in and soon she and Tommy are a couple. The other two seem too passive or gullible to notice that she deliberately comes between them. When Ruth and Tommy break up, everyone starts speculating that Tommy and Kathy would get together. But Ruth stops Kathy becoming her “natural successor” (page 93) by asking her to talk Tommy into getting back together with her. Does Ruth really want to get back with Tommy, or does she just want to stop him and Kathy being together? When they move to the Cottages, Ruth uses the other residents’ awe of Hailsham to her advantage and lets slip all sorts of half-truths to fuel their impression that Hailsham students are somehow better than other clones because of the privileged lives they led at the school. She is all about keeping up appearances and picks up habits and attitudes she thinks will impress the others. She also uses her relationship with Tommy to create the illusion of a cool couple the others will envy, and acts as if she doesn’t know what Kathy means when her friend sees through her facade. In the process she finally loses Kathy’s friendship. During the trip to Norfolk to see the woman Chrissie and Rodney think are her possible, she belittles both Tommy and Kathy in her desperate attempts to impress the older couple, but when she realises she isn’t the woman’s clone she breaks the unspoken code among clones of talking about their origins by saying they come from “junkies, prostitutes, winos and tramps” (page 152). Now that they are in a new social sphere Ruth seems determined to sweep all childish things under the rug and acts as if she doesn’t know what Kathy is referring to when she makes references to the things they did as kids at Hailsham. When Ruth finds out about Tommy’s drawings and that he already told Kathy his theory about the deferrals long ago, Ruth subtly manipulates Kathy into confessing in private that she thinks Tommy’s drawings are a joke (but she does this to smooth things over between her and Ruth) and then Ruth lets this piece of information slip out in front of Tommy. After this things aren’t the same between Kathy and Tommy (“something had come between me and Tommy” (page 181). This alienates Kathy to the point where she decides to leave and Ruth and Tommy stay behind at the Cottages. Years later Ruth and Kathy meet again and Ruth seems to have realised what damage her behaviour inflicted. Ruth was a carer for only five years and “felt it was enough for her: I was pretty much ready when I became a donor. It felt right. After all, it’s what we’re supposed to be doing, isn’t it?’” (page 207). When Kathy hears that Ruth’s first donation didn’t go well, she decides to seek her out to become her carer. At first they are wary of each other, don’t trust each other and act as if nothing went wrong between them, but the relationship deteriorates until Ruth brings up a rumour she heard about a boat beached nearby. She hints that she would like to see it and manipulates Kathy into taking her and Tommy to see it. But this time Ruth manipulates for the sake of others and not just herself. On the way back from the boat Kathy stops at a poster she saw of an office like the woman in Norfolk worked at: “Open-plan office, smart smiling people… like the place we went to that time” (page 209). At first Ruth acts as if she doesn’t remember, but then finally gives in and agrees. “A lorry went past…obscuring our view…Ruth bowed her head, as though she hoped the lorry had removed the image forever” (page 209). Kathy argues that Ruth should have tried to get special treatment to pursue her dream, but Ruth says that was impossible. Then Kathy mentions going to Madame and asking for special treatment and Ruth is triumphant because this is what she was trying to get at when she got them all together again. Ruth asks Kathy to forgive her and Kathy is utterly baffled. Then Ruth explains how subtly she manipulated the other two without them even knowing; how she should have told Kathy she had the same sexual urges and that she had had other sexual partners, not just Tommy. She also confesses that she kept Kathy and Tommy apart: “It should have been you two. I’m not pretending I didn’t always see that. Of course I did, as far back as I can remember. But I kept you apart. I’m not asking you to forgive me for that. That’s not what I’m after just now. What I want is for you to put it right. Put right what I messed up for you” (page 212). Kathy seems to realise the truth of this because she starts sobbing and says it’s too late. But Ruth gives them Madame’s address and makes them promise to try to get a deferral. After the trip Ruth and Kathy become good friends again. Ruth seems determined to make things right and continues to urge Kathy to try for a deferral. Soon after that Ruth has her second donation, but something goes wrong and in her last moments before her death she urges Kathy without words to at least try and Kathy assures her she will.